One Lie Too Many

Drudge’s devotion to the Glen Johnson/Mitt Romney smack down is much more surprising than the event itself: One of the hallmarks of the Romney campaign is the way reporters, barred from access to the actual candidate, spend the journey from event to event talking about the candidate’s latest distortions/exaggerations/evasions. So no wonder Johnson boiled over.

It had been a long time coming. In Michigan, the frustration over Romney’s complete disingeniousness about “bringing your jobs back” conjured a rare degree of camaraderie, and we caucused together and came up with a list of questions that we agreed to ask no matter who got called on at the next press conference. For instance: “If Bain Capital was going to invest in the auto industry, what segment would it invest in, and how would that help Michigan?” Salon’s Mike Madden actually got that in, but it elicited a non-answer: “I’ve been out of the private sector too long to advise people on that kind of thing.” In other words, his experience in the private sector is relevant, until he’s called upon to use it.

UPDATE: Fellow traveler Jill Zuckman has more on the veracity of Romney’s claim that lobbyists don’t run his campaign.